U15 girls travelled away today to Bedwell Dragons, last season’s D2 winners and cup finalists. Bedwell are a decent side with a shocking pitch that becomes a bit of an equaliser and is a definite home advantage.
The girls got off to a great start with our magnificent midfield magician Aanya lobbing the home GK from 30yds on 13 mins. The game was one way traffic from minute 1 and for a good 25 mins of the first half, It was looking like only one team was going to go on and win the game, and by a wide margin too! Chance after chance came and went with Lonaldo marauding down the left flank, creating chance after chance for her teammates. Lo’s also hit the bar with an unlucky but audacious lob over the GK from 5yds out after dancing past tackles to get into the box.
Bedwell were to hit back massively against the run of play with a freak goal. Skippy drove forward with the ball to join the attack and Bedwell managed to steal it back, they hoofed it forward over Ava who try as she might couldn’t make the ball and the Bedwell striker was in on goal for 1-1.
Then shock horror, Bedwell took the lead from a terrible penalty decision given against Skippy who had come across the defence to meet an attacker and win the ball fair and square with a powerful textbook shoulder charge. The ref blew up for this dubious decision and Emily couldn’t keep the resulting shot out, 2-1 Bedwell. We were all scratching our heads now - players, coaches and supporters - at how we found ourselves behind after such a dominant start.
Half time came and went and things would get worse with Bedwell scoring their 3rd with another breakaway goal from their fast left-sided forward. 3-1 Bedwell. The girls were physically in shock and didn’t know what to do and some finger pointing ensued. Then our world almost ended when a soft Bedwell corner looped into the net from a header that we didn’t compete for: 4-1 to the home side.
This by far isn’t a vintage Bedwell side after losing some of their better players to Stevenage and injury over the summer. At 4-1 the girls could almost be forgiven for thinking there was no way back as they had played Bedwell off the park early doors, and nothing seemed to run for us today hitting the bar twice and the home GK making some decent saves from Maialdinho in particular.
We needed a spark and it was to come from G9 who was having a quiet day for such an outstanding young footballer, but she dragged us back and the girls belief and confidence visibly grew: 4-2! Up next weaving her magic with powerful darting runs was Maisaldinho who almost broke the net again with her powerful shot to get us back into the fight at 4-3.
The time was running out fast and Annie was covering every blade of grass trying to drive us forward and drag her team back from the brink. Poppy N had a few snapshots from distance but either the keeper or last ditch defending kept the ball out. That was until Aanya picked up a loose ball on the edge of the Bedwell area. She beat 2 players and was into the box; another defender came across and tried to tackle her but Anya was too strong, then another with the ball locked between them; Aanya would not be denied and powered through to the keeper. Aanya shot and the keeper saved but she couldn’t hold so Anya again went for the ball and was the first to it and she managed to knock it over the line to salvage a point for her team: 4-4!
In a game we dominated so completely for a time we got drawn into a dogfight and lost our way, we nearly lost all the points to a team we feel we should have beaten much easier. But one thing that can’t be thrown at these girls is a lack of heart as they didn’t give up and got their reward in the end. Well done girls.